Friday, October 05, 2007

You Are Not A Victim

The phenomenon coming out of what is a litigious society is the amount of perceived victimization in individuals. During the average day you will listen to about one hour of complaining (and unless you don’t talk, that means you also are contributing to that hour for someone else), mostly regarding something that is contributing to holding that person back; on how they are a victim. The snowball effect of this is that the complainers are winning by creating more and more like minded individuals. We now have full conversations dedicated to “one upping” our victimization, as it is necessary to be a bigger victim than the person next to us.

With perceived victimization we continually harm our psyche, giving power to others while rendering ourselves powerless. The more we perceive ourselves as victims the more we allow ourselves to be manipulated by others, the system, society, and “the man”. In giving up our control we also give up our self esteem; we lose the fight we have in us. When our self esteem is fractured we get an unrealistic view of the situation we are in, think that everyone is out to get us, and look for people to complain to. In success we create more complainers so that we feel better; we get people to join our team. In failure we fracture relationships, become disgruntled, and lose a sense of self. Neither is a self empowering outcome to an avoidable situation.

We live in a free society where there are choices to be made. Ultimately we either make choices that empower us and make us stronger, or we make choices that lessen our value internally as well as externally. Through our decision making process we have the ability to create the life that we want, but that comes with responsibility. Our responsibility to ourselves is to make sure that we are in control over our life path, that we are making decisions that are empowering and will allow us to take on more personal responsibility. Our responsibility to others is that we will show them the way by not falling victim to their negativity. Outside of abuse in our lives, we are the ones who make the decisions that will either foster empowerment or victimization in ourselves as well as in others.

Our greatest power as free people is in our ability to choose. When we give up that ability we create an environment where we allow others to take advantage of us. You can choose to complain and to spread negativity throughout your personal network, which will never get you out of the victim mentality, or you can choose to really live, to get back the control you have lost, and to become the person you really want to be. Being a victim is a mindset, much like being in control, but it is your ability to make the choices necessary to your happiness that will ultimately separate a victim from an empowered person.